The Girl From Home

by Adam Mitzner

  It’s a man’s voice. Very serious sounding.

  “This is she.”

  “Mrs. Williams, my name is Detective Quincy Martin. I’m a police officer with the East Carlisle Police Department. Are you currently at home?”

  “No. I’m at my mother’s in Baltimore. Is something wrong? Are my kids okay?”

  It’s enough of a cue that her mother whispers, “What’s wrong?” but Jackie shakes the question away.

  “Yes, ma’am, they’re fine,” the detective says.

  “Okay . . . so what is this about?”

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you this over the phone, Mrs. Williams, but there was an accident at your husband’s workplace and he’s been killed.”

  She’s silent, uncertain of what to say. Finally she manages, “How?”

  “Your husband was crossing the street in front of his place of business, and he was struck by an SUV. Unfortunately, the driver fled the scene.”

  Jackie exhales deeply. It feels like she’s in a dream. So much so that she’s tempted to pinch herself, but she doesn’t because, if it’s not real, she has no desire to wake up.

  “Mrs. Williams, are you still there?” Detective Martin says.

  “Yeah. I’m . . . I’m sorry.”

  “We would greatly appreciate it if you came back to East Carlisle right away. Please come directly to the police station.”

  “Um, okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  She disconnects the call and places the cell phone on the table beside her. Her mother is saying something, but Jackie has tuned it out. She’s completely and utterly focused on the fact that Rick is finally dead. It’s no longer a fantasy. Her nightmare is over. She’s free.

  * * *

  “Who was that? Where will you be as soon as you can?” Jackie’s mother says.

  The words pull Jackie out of her trance. After taking a deep breath, she says, “That was the police. Rick . . . he’s dead. A hit-and-run accident, they said.”

  “Oh my God, Jackie,” her mother says.

  Jackie suspects her mother doesn’t believe it was an accident. The odds of Rick being killed by a random motorist only the day after he struck Jackie seem astronomically high not to find the two connected. Still, abusive husbands are sometimes the victims of fatal accidents, so who is she to say that her mother’s initial impulse must be to assume murder?

  “I need to go back to East Carlisle.”

  “I’ll come with you,” her mother says.

  “No,” Jackie says quickly. Then more softly, “Thank you, but . . . I’d like to do this alone. I need to go straight to the police station, and then after that, I’ll need to tell the kids, so . . .”

  “You’re going to talk to the police?”

  The question’s tone implies the correct answer—Jackie should not talk to the police. The reason is self-evident: Jackie’s mother believes Jackie is a murderer.

  Will the police be equally quick to reach that conclusion? Jackie thinks not. They won’t know that Rick was the kind of guy who should have been killed long ago. So there’s no reason for them to see this as anything but a random hit-and-run accident.

  “They asked me to come in,” Jackie says. “I can’t say no.”

  “Maybe . . . I don’t know . . . maybe you should call a lawyer.”

  It was a good idea, obviously. Yet Jackie knew it was going to be tucked away with all the other advice her mother had dispensed over the years that she’d rejected. Number one on that list was not to marry Rick in the first place.

  “No, I can’t do that. How many wives of victims of hit-and-run accidents do you think immediately get a lawyer?”

  Her mother sighs deeply, apparently understanding the logic of Jackie’s position, if not accepting its correctness. “Just be careful, Jackie,” she says.

  This advice Jackie plans to take fully to heart.

  * * *

  Jonathan recognizes the number of Jackie’s burner phone. He answers immediately. “Hello.”

  “God, it’s good to hear your voice,” she says.

  Jonathan can tell at once that something’s off. Jackie sounds scared.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. But Rick’s dead.”

  For a moment, Jonathan’s not sure he heard her right. Could it actually be true? Rick dead?

  “Hit-and-run accident,” Jackie says without inflection before Jonathan can form a question. Although if he had been given more time, How? would not have been what he asked.

  “I’m going to the East Carlisle police station now,” Jackie continues. “But I wanted to call you right away. You need to be careful now.”

  You need to be careful ?

  Why would she say that? Does she think he ran down Rick?

  Maybe she does. After all, at the hotel he promised to kill Rick. And he meant it, too.

  But he didn’t kill Rick. He assumed she did, but if she’s not taking credit for it, then maybe Rick was really the victim of a random hit-and-run.

  And then a darker explanation comes into focus. Maybe Jackie did the deed but is now trying to pin the murder on him.

  “Jonathan,” she says, as if it’s a completed thought.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s going to be hard to stay away from you, but we shouldn’t be seen together for a while. We can still talk—just call me on this number, okay?”

  Jonathan wonders whether he should get a burner phone, too. That would make him look guilty, he thinks. Besides, if his contact with Jackie is hidden through her burner phone, he doesn’t need one.

  “Okay,” he says.

  “And Jonathan . . . I love you.”

  He doesn’t want to confirm that he’s in love with Jackie, for fear that if she is recording him, it would be an admission. Then again, he doesn’t want to give her any reason to distrust him, either.

  “Me, too,” he says.

  30

  Jackie’s last visit to the East Carlisle police station was on a fourth-grade field trip. It’s still located in the same complex of buildings as it was back then, across the pond where she ice-skated as a girl, with the public library right beside it.

  A female officer introduces herself, but Jackie doesn’t catch her name. The officer leads Jackie through the squad room, where the detectives sit in cubicles on the perimeter of the room with an oval conference table in the center. The cinder-block walls are a dingy gray and badly in need of a touch-up, and the smell of stale coffee permeates the air.

  Jackie’s taken to a small, windowless room. Pushed up against the wall is a metal table surrounded by three metal chairs. A video camera is perched midway up the corner of the wall, which is enough to identify that the space is used for interrogations.

  She looks to see whether the camera is on. No red light, but that doesn’t mean anything. Do the police have to tell her whether they’re taping? Is that a question an innocent person would ask? Even if they are taping, it’s not as if she’s going to leave or change her story. Just act as if it’s on, she tells herself.

  The officer leaves her alone, shutting the door behind her. A moment later, Jackie’s solitude is broken by a loud succession of knocks on the door. Before she can say “Come in,” the door swings opens. That must be the police’s way of saying that she’s in their house, and they don’t need her permission to enter.

  The man who enters first introduces himself as Detective Quincy Martin. Jackie remembers the name as belonging to the cop who told her on the phone that Rick was dead.

  Her initial impression is that Detective Martin is a former jock, a conclusion she reaches simply by the swagger with which he approaches her, and yet she’s nearly certain of its validity. Former high school gods now in their forties is something of a specialty of hers. It gives Jackie a feeling that she might have a slight advantage over him, until she realizes that he’s probably equally well versed in the psyches of fortysomething former homecoming queens.

  She further assumes Detec
tive Martin’s sport was basketball. He has a tall, lanky frame that wouldn’t lend itself to success on the gridiron; dark, round eyes that leave no doubt he sees things that others don’t; and a thoughtful mouth, which is surrounded by a beard flecked with gray. His scalp is shaved smooth. He must have gotten tired of going bald and just decided to be done with it.

  Beside Detective Martin is a younger man wearing the policeman blues. His face is so innocent that Jackie can imagine him blushing if he heard an off-color joke. The name tag beside his shield says Officer Romatowski.

  The detective sits closer to Jackie, and his more junior colleague across from her. Romatowski takes out a pad. It’s one of those big leather-covered ones, like the police use to write tickets.

  “Mrs. Williams, I’m very sorry for your loss,” Detective Martin says.

  “Thank you,” Jackie says.

  She wishes she could will herself to cry, but she’s not that talented an actor. Instead she rubs her eyes, hoping the gesture conveys the same sense of grief as actual tears.

  “We really don’t know very much about what happened,” Detective Martin says. “Your husband was struck by what witnesses identified as a black SUV. There’s some discrepancy about the model. None of the witnesses could recall any of the numbers in the license plate, although one of them told us they thought it had New Jersey tags.”

  Jackie nods, considering what the proper reaction to this news would be if she was actually in mourning. She decides that a loving wife would accept this explanation at face value and not inquire any further.

  “Is there any way I can help?” she asks. “With the investigation, I mean.”

  In her head, this sounded better. To her ear it’s a non sequitur. What could she possibly do to help with the investigation of a hit-and-run accident?

  Detective Martin either didn’t pick up on anything being amiss or he has a world-class poker face, because his expression shows no negative reaction to Jackie’s offer. Instead he gives her a warm smile and says, “Thank you. That’s a very kind offer. And we may need your help down the road. But right now, what we need for you to do, unfortunately, is to make an identification of your husband.”

  A moment of panic overtakes Jackie. Could it be possible Rick isn’t dead? That it’s some type of mistaken identity?

  As if he can read her thoughts, Detective Martin says, “The identification is something of a formality because we know it’s him. His employees identified him at the scene, and he was carrying his driver’s license. But we need a family member to do it officially. Before I do that, however, I need to ask you a few questions. Standard inquiries, but it’s a box I need to check, I’m afraid.”

  Jackie hadn’t expected the police to question her about a hit-and-run accident that occurred when Jackie was close to two hundred miles away. She plays out in her head an attempt to decline. I’m so sorry, but I can’t answer any questions now . . . No, that won’t work. Focus, Jackie commands herself. You’re supposed to be a grieving spouse in shock. Just play that part.

  Jackie rubs her eyes again. “Okay.”

  Detective Martin asks a flurry of basic background questions: date of birth, address, marriage date, names and ages of her children. Jackie provides short answers to each, seemingly to Detective Martin’s satisfaction, because after the preliminaries are completed, he says, “Okay, then. Why don’t we head on over to the morgue.”

  * * *

  Jackie had expected that the morgue would be downstairs in the basement of the East Carlisle Police Department, but Detective Martin tells her that the facility is actually a ten-minute ride away. She turns down his offer of a ride, telling him that she’d prefer to follow him in her car so she can go straight home afterward to break the news to her children.

  The identification is just like the ones she’s seen on television. Detective Martin leads her into a sterile-looking room with cement floors and a drain in the center. There’s a single gurney in it, with a body—Rick’s body—in a blue bag lying on top.

  Jackie rubs her biceps, more out of nervousness than because she’s chilly, although the morgue is at least ten degrees cooler than normal room temperature. The air smells like some type of disinfectant, but the odor isn’t as unpleasant or as strong as she’d imagined it would be.

  “Ready?” Detective Martin asks.

  Jackie nods, all the while thinking that this is her star turn. Should she break down? Turn away? Play the stoic?

  He unzips the bag down to the base of Rick’s throat. Rick doesn’t look like he’s sleeping, which is how she had imagined this scene unfolding. He’s bluer than she had anticipated, the color of a vein almost. He must have been bleeding from the scalp, because his hair looks matted. Rick was nothing if not meticulous about his hair.

  She looks at Detective Martin as she tries to will herself to cry. No dice. The tears aren’t coming, so she falls back to the eye rub again, while turning away from Rick’s corpse for effect.

  “Yes, that’s Rick,” she says. “That’s my husband.”

  * * *

  Jackie considers picking her kids up at school to break the news, but decides to allow them to finish their day so she can tell them in the comfort of their home. She texts them that she’s back from their grandmother’s house, and asks them to come straight home after school.

  As soon as Robert and Emma arrive home, Jackie asks them to sit down in the living room. “I have something I need to talk to you both about,” she says.

  From the looks on their faces, they appear to be expecting bad news. It occurs to her that they likely think the news is about their grandmother. After all, that was Jackie’s pretense for shipping them off to their friends—that her mother had taken ill.

  “Your father was killed today,” she says softly. “A hit-and-run traffic accident near his office.”

  She leans over to hug Emma, and out of the corner of her eye spies Robert. He doesn’t seem the least bit distressed. Even Emma, who still cries over animated movies, hasn’t been moved to tears and pulls away from her mother after a few seconds. Her eyes are bone dry.

  “I’m going to hold the wake at the church, and then the funeral will be the day after tomorrow,” Jackie explains. “You should tell your friends so you have your own support network. You’ll stay home from school the rest of the week, but next week I think you should go back. When my father died, I wasn’t all that much older than you two, and I found it really helpful to get back to my regular routine as soon as possible.”

  Neither Robert nor Emma says anything. Jackie can’t discern whether that’s because they are trying to hold it together or because they feel no sense of grief over their father’s passing. She strongly suspects it’s the latter—Robert and Emma knew full well the horrors of living under the same roof as Rick Williams.

  “Are you guys okay?” Jackie finally asks.

  Robert speaks first. “Yes,” he says in a strong voice.

  Jackie turns to Emma.

  “I don’t think it’s going to be for us like it was for you when your father died,” Emma says. “And not because it’s going to be worse because we’re younger. I mean, you and your father were really close, and . . . I don’t know.”

  Jackie pulls her daughter back in to her. “The three of us, we’re going to be better now. I promise.”

  Robert leans in to participate in the group hug. Jackie can hardly believe it, but her main emotion is disappointment. She’s sorry she didn’t murder the son of a bitch years ago.

  * * *

  Jonathan hasn’t left the house since Jackie called that morning to tell him that Rick was dead. He’s spent the day watching television and eating Domino’s Pizza—and waiting for Jackie to report on her visit with East Carlisle’s finest. That call—from Jackie’s burner phone—finally comes at ten that evening.

  “I was starting to worry,” he says.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to call until the kids were in bed.”

  “So . . . how did it
all go today?”

  “Fine.” She lets slip out a small laugh. “That sounds so awful, right? It went fine. Identifying Rick’s dead body went fine. Telling my kids that their father was dead went fine. But it did. I actually think that they were as relieved as I was. Christ, can you imagine? That’s what I should put on that asshole’s tombstone. His wife and kids were relieved that he was finally dead.”

  Jonathan weighs his next words, hearing them in his head before committing to them. “Jackie . . . did you kill him?”

  She doesn’t hesitate. “Yes. Not directly, of course. But I hired a guy who did it, so . . . yes, I killed him.”

  Even though Jonathan knew that was what had happened, hearing Jackie say it still rocks him. In his wildest dreams, Jonathan hadn’t imagined Jackie capable of murder.

  “I’m not going to say I did it for us,” she continues, “but now we can finally be together. If you’ll still have me, I mean.”

  He’s slow to answer, grappling to get his mind around the change of circumstances. It’s a question he never thought he’d ponder: Can he love a murderer?

  “Jonathan, I’m scared. And not just about the police. But about you too. For the next . . . I don’t know how long . . . we won’t be able to see each other, and I . . . I know it’s a lot for me to ask, but I need to know that you’re with me.”

  Jonathan exhales loudly. It is a lot to ask. Then again, not so much when it’s being asked by someone you love.

  “Yes. Yes. I’m with you,” he says.

  31

  Jackie attributes the large turnout at the funeral more to the fact that Rick never lived anywhere other than East Carlisle than that he was actually liked by any of the attendees. Rick didn’t have much family. He was an only child. His mother died before Emma was born, and he hadn’t spoken to his father since long before that, despite the fact that the elder Mr. Williams lived only one town over. Rick always claimed their estrangement was because his old man was an abusive alcoholic asshole, and Jackie believed him; something in the gene pool, she figured. Rick’s father didn’t attend the mother’s funeral, so Jackie had no reason to think that he’d appear to say his final good-bye to his son, either.